This meeting is when we elect the Association Officers and other Executive members for 2017-2018, discuss the year’s activities and plan for the future. We would like to hear from people interested in joining the Executive. The President (Rhona Carson) and Treasurer (Jane Patterson) are standing for re-election, but we haven’t had any nominations yet for Secretary, so if you might be interested and your skills lend themselves to writing items for our Newsletter and this Website and similar tasks do get in touch to have a chat about it!

Nominees and nominators for the Executive need to be financial members of the Association, if you haven’t paid your subscription yet you can join at the start of the meeting.

The other main business for the 2017 AGM is the handover of responsibility for the Newtown Festival to the Newtown Festival Trust. The Trust has been established and has been accepted by Charities Services as a Charitable Trust. Resolutions approving the handover will be voted on at the meeting.

The Wellington South Licensing Trust was established in 1972, ceased to operate in 1998, and was wound up in 2001. Its final act was to give a grant to the Newtown Residents’ Association to fund a history of the Trust. This was started, but time passed, people moved on, and the early efforts were lost. In 2012 Steve Dunn, who was then the Association President, undertook the task of reviving the History. He commissioned historian and Association member Peter Cooke to make a fresh start. Peter accessed some documents from the National Archives, most importantly a list of the Trustees. He then taped intervews with the 12 of them he was able to contact and who agreed, and typed up transcripts. One of the trustees, John Gilberthorpe, was able to provide some publicity material and photographs from the 1970s. Next, the material was passed on to Tony Pritchard to prepare a document that could be posted on our website. Tony wrote a short beginning-to-end history, with a little bit of the opinion and conjecture from the interviews. He also listened to the interviews, edited the transcripts, and produced a very lively story, which we have now published and recommend for your reading pleasure! Many thanks to Steve, Peter and Tony for keeping the project alive and bringing it to a conclusion, and also to the Trustees for the original grant and for their cooperation in recalling and recording the stories of the Trust.

Please make sure your thoughts about Newtown are included – you can do the questionnaire on line, or get a paper copy from Kia Ora Newtown at 6 Constable St, the Newtown Community and Cultural centre or the Newtown Library.

When all the responses are in Cally O’Neill, the project designer and facilitator, can get to work on analysing the results. See more about the Our Town Newtown project here.

The Residents’ Association meeting on 21st August included the following:

Predator Free Mt Cook Newtown

Recently granted funding means they can build and circulate more traps. Contact them (mailto:predatorfreemcn@gmail.com) to either pick up a free trap, or buy a ‘fancy’ trap at a discounted price. There are currently 80 traps in Newtown, and more than 300 rats have been caught, but more are needed for good coverage. Sponsors are Kiwibank (funding – National Predator-Free trust), Forest and Bird have loaned traps, Placemakers Kilbirnie have donated wood. Volunteers are needed for building traps – working bee at 40A Wright Street, Mt Cook 1:00pm – 5:00pm Sunday 3 September.

It would be good to hear from anyone able and willing to coordinate extending the Predator Free project to Berhampore.

An update about the Our Town Newtown Project
The Saturday 19th August ‘Shine a light on Newtown’ event had smallish attendance but achieved a good deal in sorting through ideas which have been put forward.

Our next big Newtown clean-up is the first Saturday in September. Can you help? We will meet outside the Newtown Mall between 9am and 12noon – wear your old clothes, all equipment is provided. There will be painting, cleaning and gardening to do, BBQ cooking to help with – and Timebank credits to earn, if you are a Timebank member.

Volunteers get free BBQ sausages, thanks to Newtown New World – and sausages are for sale too, so you are welcome to come just to say “hello” and buy one! Halal sausages are available.

We are holding a Meet the Candidates Meeting for the Rongotai Electorate on Tuesday September 5th at St Anne’s Hall, Emmett St, Newtown. The doors open at 7.10pm, and the meeting will start promptly at 7.30pm. Patrick Morgan will be in the chair. The formal presentations, questions and answers will be followed by supper and time for informal chats – we do a good supper!

Election Day is Saturday September 23rd, but advance voting opens on Monday September 11th and you can vote from then on. Come along the week before and hear what the candidates for our electorate have to say.

Are you enrolled to vote? If not, you can do this any time up until September 22nd – find out how here. There are more then 5500 people of voting age in our electorate who aren’t enrolled – if you are one of them, now’s your chance to change that and to make this the election when you have your say!

Association Membership The financial year runs from July 1st to June 30th, so memberships need renewing now. Everyone is welcome to come to meetings – members and non-members. The difference is that members can vote and can stand for office at the AGM. It is also a great way of showing support for the work of the Association. The fee is still a gold coin, which can be paid at any Association meeting (the next meeting is on August 21st). Email us if you would like to join but can’t get to the meeting.

Progress on Newtown Festival Trust Forming a Trust to run the Festival has been under discussion for several years, and the Association passed a motion in February asking for this to be expedited. The Newtown Festival Trust has now been established, with Anna Kemble Welch and James Coyle as foundation trustees. The intention is to bring three more trustees on board in the near future, and we are very pleased that Ian McKinnon has agreed to be one of these three. An application for charitable status has been lodged with Charities Services. When all five trustees have been appointed and Charitable Status has been granted the Newtown Residents’ Association will be asked to pass a resolution to hand over responsibility for the Newtown Festival to the Trust. We are very grateful to the lawyers, Chapman Tripp, who have been advising us and doing the necessary legal work on a ‘pro bono’ basis.

Cycling in Newtown Patrick Morgan reported that cycle ways through Newtown are about to be discussed again. Watch for Council engagement opportunities. [Since the meeting it has been announced that there will be opportunities to discus this with the WCC team at the Newtown Market at Newtown School on Saturday 29th July, 8am-12 noon, and at St Annes Hall on Tuesday August 1st 4pm-7pm. See more at http://transportprojects.org.nz]

Carrara Park gardens Lachie (Lachlan Marshall, the local Salvation Army officer) outlined how he and some Church associates became involved with maintaining the Park. They have been there every Tuesday morning since 6 May. He has been consulting with Linnéa Lindstroem, who was one of the founders of the Newtown Community Gardens group, Martin Hanley and Rhona Carson and others from the Association – our Association holds the lease to use the garden beds. Linnéa is willing and able to coordinate revitalising the Community Gardens, and there are ideas for raised garden beds (part of the original plans), and ideas for composting. A Council grant will fund materials for the garden beds. Ray Tuffin (WCC Liaison Officer) has had inquiries from childcare centres and older people for garden spaces to maintain.

General Election: Meet the Candidates Meeting Our Residents Association has traditionally hosted these meetings before elections, and would like to do so again. Voting opens on Monday September 11th and it is proposed to hold the meeting during the week before. Patrick has offered to chair the meeting again, and the offer was accepted with acclamation. [It has now been confirmed that the meeting will be on Tuesday September 5th, 7.30pm at St Anne’s Hall, Emmett St.]

Matariki event in Carrara Park – Saturday 29 July The Russian Orthodox Community are hosting this event, and have been consulting the Newtown Festival Office about logistics. People from a local Kohanga Reo have also been involved in the planning.

Residents parking on Constable Street A Constable St resident introduced this topic, outlining the extreme pressure on parking in this area. WCC have been approached about the possibility of Residents Parking – if this was implemented it would only be possible on one side of the street. The situation in Colombo St, where there is residents parking combined with time limited parking for non-residents, was described – this has been very successful. The discussion covered parking issues in Newtown generally, including the continuing concerns about how the proposed Mary Potter apartments might increase parking demand.

Cleaning up the Town Belt vegetation One of our members noted the amount of introduced weeds on parts of the Town Belt and asked if there would be interest in a working bee to remove them. It was noted that they would need to be replaced with suitable planting. We would need to consult with WCC, but it was thought that a working bee could be possible if this was approved.

Next meetingMonday August 21st, 7.30pm at the Newtown Hall, 71 Daniell St. Please email if you have suggestions of items for the agenda.

In June Wellington Water applied to Wellington City Council for a Town Belt Easement for the construction and operation of the reservoir, and the Council called for submissions. At the June meeting we agreed that our Association should make a submission, with a focus on the need for mitigation of the effect of construction on the residents in the neighbouring streets,

In our submission we are mindful of the need for mitigation of the effects of construction, but the main message is that we are keen to have an emergency water supply as soon as possible.

There has been some discussion about whether there is any option for changing the location of the reservoir, but our conclusion was that we didn’t want to pursue this. Wellington Water did identify 4 options, but on analysing them decided that the current site is the most suitable. This seems to be a pretty fixed decision and overturning it seems likely to be an enormous task – and then, if successful, going back to the drawing board and redoing all the calculations and studies and consultation, applying for new consents etc. It would surely add years to the process.

Future bus services.
Daran Ponter, from the Greater Wellington Regional Council, was the guest speaker, telling us about the new bus services which will be operating from 2018. Full details of all changes and affected routes can be found here, or pick up a brochure about Newtown services from Kia Ora Newtown. The aim is to increase capacity without putting more buses onto congested roads. The changes will involve higher capacity buses and simplified routes. The ‘spoke and hub’ model that was originally proposed has been modified, and the routes are now much more straightforward. Good news for University students is that their voices have been heard and the number 18 service will be retained at peak hours.
People at the meeting asked about the decision to replace the trolley buses before the promised electric buses are available. Daran explained the decision for replacement was made in 2015. It wasn’t unanimous but the majority ruled. The work has already been delayed, and it isn’t practical to keep putting it off.
There was also interest in the prospects for light rail, and Daran confirmed that ‘Let’s get Welly moving’ has reinvigorated the discussion.

Submission on the Prince of Wales/Omāroro Reservoir
The submission is due on 17th July. We discussed that the Association would make a submission that recognises the need for an emergency water supply. However the construction will have a significant impact on local residents, and we agreed that our submission will emphasise the need for mitigation of the effects of this, and also the need to protect the environment, in particular the Waitangi Stream tributary and the Papawai stream.

The Agenda will include a presentation about Wellington’s new bus service, starting in 2018. What does this mean for Newtown? Come and find out! The speaker is Daran Ponter from the Greater Wellington Regional Council.

We will also discuss what might be said in a submission from the Association about the Prince of Wales/Omāroro Reservoir.

The Our Town Newtown Project is about putting the community at the centre of deciding how to spend $3million of Wellington City Council funding for developing Newtown’s community facilities. Passionate locals and collaborators are working to ensure this is done through a co-design, or community-led process. This means actively including all users, local people and stakeholders in the design process, making sure that local knowledge and the people who make Newtown Newtown – are at the centre of decision making – resulting in more appropriate, useful and unique developments.

Pop into the Our Town Newtown Project Hub @ 199 Riddiford St – between the New World Mall entry and St Vincent de Paul’s. Here you can discuss the project, fill out the questionnaire, have a look and contribute to the interactive exhibition, have a cup of tea, or be taken through an activity with one of the hosts. Children are welcome – there is a craft activity table and a reading corner to keep them entertained. If we have enough volunteers for the roster the space will be open from Tuesday to Saturday 12 noon -6pm till early July – if there aren’t enough volunteers it will be open at least on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 12 noon – 4pm.

Contact us on ourtownnewtown@gmail.com, we ‘d love to hear from you and if needed we can organise to meet you at home or some other convenient place.

‘OUR TOWN NEWTOWN’ EVENTS COMING UP:

Tuesday evenings, 20th and 27th of June 6:30 – 8:30pm – Shine a light on Newtown

Join us for local mini presentations from a wide range of speakers, a meal and project discussion

The third was to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who have been consulting on an “Urban Development Authorities Discussion Document”. The proposed Urban Development Authorities would give wide ranging powers to develop land for housing and other purposes, overriding the usual planning and consenting procedure. We made a submission opposing this, you can see it here.

He and his wife have recently been posted to Newtown. They are working together to do things to benefit the community.

TSA have a rehabilitation programme and there are people involved who are looking for something to do. Lachie has been in discussion with Carrara Park Newtown Community Garden. WorkerBe Oasis is another possibility.

Wellington South Community Patrol: Carol Comber brought a request that our Association write a letter of support for this group, which has been nominated for a community award. The Patrol drive around our local suburbs at night, liaise with Police about any problems observed. The meeting agreed to support their cause.Agreed.

Update on Airport Runway Extension Consent Process –Currently there is court action from the Airline Pilots Association objecting to approval of runway length.

This questionnaire is a community-wide introduction to the Our Town Newtown Project, which is an exciting collaboration between Wellington City Council and Newtown locals and is providing Newtown with an opportunity to collectively develop ideas and identify how to best spend Wellington City Council allocated funds on the development of WCC community facilities in Newtown.

A steering group drawn from the Newtown Residents Association, the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre and the Wellington City Council is supporting the project, and together with a wider ‘working group’ and related professionals, research, investigation and planning is going well.

Anyone and everyone who lives in Newtown, works here or uses facilities here is invited to get involved. We have some exciting plans to share with you soon – including a pop-up project hub in the shop site at 199 Riddiford St, next door to St Vincent de Paul, and a series of public meetings and activities. Right now however we would like to ask you to please give us a hand with this questionnaire.

We need to make sure we understand where we are starting from: what Newtown is, what Newtown has, what Newtown needs, and how Newtown does things. The questionnaire is designed to collect information about this.

We aim to include as wide a range of voices as possible, and to reflect Newtown’s diversity in further development. We know there are communities and people who will find an online questionnaire difficult or unappealing, or who don’t have access to computers. A hard copy distribution is being set up and will include an outreach strategy. If you know of people who would like to be interviewed, instead of filling in a form, please let us know. And if you are interested in being part of the team effecting outreach for the Our Town Newtown project it would be great to hear from you.